Leek Town manager Neil Baker has warned his players against complacency as they prepare to take on bottom club Clitheroe at Harrison Park on Saturday.

Blues are unbeaten after their opening three games of the season with two wins (Skelmersdale 4-0, Newcastle Town 1-0) and a draw (Droylsden 1-1), but says they can’t afford to take anyone lightly.

Leek slipped up against the likes of struggling Gresley last season at home and paid for it by missing out on the end-of-season play-offs and that’s something the manager is wary of, even at this early stage of the season.

“You have to battle for everything in this league. If you switch off or become complacent, then you get punished. We have made a decent start with seven points from our opening three games, but I still think we can play a lot better than we have been doing,” said the manager.

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He explained: “We haven’t got into our stride yet. I wasn’t happy with a lot of the things we were doing in the Newcastle game especially. There is room for improvement and I want to see that in the coming weeks.”

One area he was referring to was the amount of chances wasted in the Newcastle game. Rob Stevenson scored the only goal of the game in the first half, but several other good chances were missed.

“I was disappointed we didn’t make the most of our chances to put the game to bed by half-time. Derby matches are never easy at the best of times, you can never take them for granted as we have found out in the past, but the game should have been put beyond Newcastle by half-time. It was as if it didn’t matter if they missed a chance because another would come along. But it doesn’t always happen. I told the players at half-time to be alert and take their chances. I was an almost too casual an approach from them and we can’t afford to do that in this league.”

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Baker compled the signing of left-back Andy McWilliams from Buxton in time for him to make his debut as a substitute at Newcastle, and with players such as Sam Hall and Darren Chadwick on the comeback trail, Baker says it can only be good for the squad.

“Any team would miss players such as Sam and Darren. They are good players and it will be nice to have them back in the fold.”

Meanwhile, Leek will travel to play Charnock Richard in the preliminary round of the FA Cup on Tuesday night. They were due to play Litherland on Saturday, but the Merseyside outfit were kicked out of the competition for playing an ineligible player in the 4-1 victory over Charnock Richard, who were reinstated.